Broken Land
by Shini02
Summary: X–Nation. Oneshot. Sometimes death is a step in the right direction. “She was just some kid I knew back before the Howlers took me in.” Wulff–centric.


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing but this fic, and Brooklyn.

* * *

**Broken Land**

Her name is Brooklyn, and her parents are dead, slaughtered by Wild Boys who wanted to add one more bloodstain to their collection and see just how loud flatscans could scream. They screamed louder than expected as they were torn to pieces by razor-sharp energy discs and blasts of power that shot out like bullets from a pistol. The corpses were further mutilated by talons and teeth, until all that remained was one big motley pile of flesh and blood and bone.

Now she hides, huddled and scared, trying not to cry out loud as his footsteps come nearer. "Serves them right," she hears one say. "Shockin' flatscans oughtta know better than to come into X-Nation," another says, wiping blood from his horrible teeth. That one reminds her of a monster – they all do, but he especially does. Mommy used to say the monsters would go away if you were quiet, if you could hide well enough and if you were lucky. She thinks her luck must have run out, because another one of them is coming closer and she knows he knows she's there and he's not going to go away.

He stops in front of her, scuffed black boots close enough to touch, and she squeezes her eyes shut tight as he begins to squat. "Hey," he whispers, and she shakes her head and clamps her hands over her ears as though that will make him go away.

It only makes him reach out and grab her arm, slapping his other hand onto her mouth which screams against his palm. "Shut up, will ya?" he growls at her, and pulls her out into the open, closer to him. "They're lookin' for you," he warns, glancing over his shoulder, and the leader is barking orders to the others. If they don't move, she'll be found for sure.

She wriggles in his hold, tears falling down her cheeks and leaving little wet streaks on his leather gloves. He realizes she hasn't heard a word he's said, too scared to even think straight. This must be remedied, so he shakes her until her eyes are open wide and focused solely on him.

"Listenin'?" he asks, tone harsh. She nods dumbly, sobbing. "Good. Now look, I can get you outta here in one piece – all you gotta do is trust me."

And against her better judgment, she does trust him. He takes her into his arms and runs faster than she ever imagined a person could run until he finally comes to a halt in front of a broken down little shack of a house. She wonders if it's his as he sets her down.

"Alright, you're safe now. Get going, back to the boarder or something," he tells her, wiping away the tears she left behind on his leather jacket.

She doesn't move, doesn't even make the effort as she stares up at him. "You saved me," she whispers.

He looks away from her young face, from deep brown eyes that dare something kinder, softer to surface in him. "Think nothing of it, kid," he says.

"Why?" she asks in a tone that tells him she's one of _those_ kids, the ones that always ask _why_. "You were with the monsters, I saw you – and they... they..." The tears begin to fall again and she looks down to the ground, dirtied with garbage and scraps of metal.

"I didn't see the point," he answers smoothly, though he can't bear to look at her as she cries now. He had seen no gain in murdering the couple, so he fled when Dorian opened fire; he had wanted no part in it whatsoever. And when he saw the little girl, he knew she would have been killed as well, and he just couldn't let Dorian slaughter a child. So he acted on impulse, on instinct, and stole her away to give her another chance at life.

"We're not all monsters," he mumbles, and those four words make her stop crying. She looks up at him once more.

"W-what's your name?" she asks, catching her breath.

He cocks an eyebrow. "Uh... Wulff."

"Is that your real name?"

He wants to laugh, but he stifles it, covers it up with a cough. It's been so long since he's heard the name his parents gave him, he's forgotten it. "No," he tells her, "but it's all I got."

"Oh, okay then," she says softly. "My name's Brooklyn."

And she winds up staying with him, after hours of nagging and crying on-and-off and she's told him she has nowhere else to go, no living family (that she's aware of) to run to. He gave in only because he doesn't want to see her killed, and he knows how hard it is to be on the streets alone at her age.

* * *

He starts to call her Brook for short after a few weeks of having her follow him everywhere like lovesick puppy. She explains that Mommy used to call her Lyn for short, and then naturally she asks why he's chosen to call her Brook. He tells her it suits her. He doesn't tell her that it's really all for irony's sake, that he's _brooking_ her constant presence. He doesn't tell her that brooks are small and frail and easily broken, and she reminds him of dirty, shallow water.

"I like it," she says with a smile and takes hold of his hand as they walk through the city.

He looks down at her hand wrapped around his, pale skin against shiny leather. "I'm, uh... I'm glad."

"Mommy said that when you give someone a nickname, it means you like them," she says, tugging on his hand. "It means you care about them."

He looks ahead as they walk. "Yeah, sure," he says, and hates to admit she's right. She's wormed her way inside his heart and he cares for her, wants to protect her from the dangers of this sick and twisted era.

"Can I call you Wulffie?" she asks, giggling. To his surprise and shame, he blushes.

"No!" he says quickly. "Just stick with Wulff," he tells her.

She pouts. "But I care about you, too."

"You don't gotta give me a nickname to prove that."

"Oh," she says, making a face. "What else can I do?"

"You don't have to do anything, Brook. You don't gotta prove yourself to me."

Her hand squeezes his tighter. "But I want to."

She doesn't understand why he tells her in a quiet hush, "don't."

* * *

Her name is Brooklyn, but he calls her Brook for short, and she's dying now, slip-sliding off of his clawed fingers and falling to the ground. She holds her bleeding stomach, coughs up blood and rasps a soft, terrified, "why?"

He shakes his head, clearing his mind, and as he stares down at her dying body, he thinks back on just how this happened. He remembers Dorian and his shit-eating grin as he barged in on the two, sing-songing "I found you – you knew I would" before he opened fire, this time using twin pistols. He remembers shoving the girl out of the way, dodging shots and charging at the other mutant, claws at the ready and fangs bared.

He remembers things getting fuzzy as he fought with Dorian, as the animal inside took over and was let loose.

He doesn't remember Brooklyn screaming and crying and trying to pry them apart, because she didn't want Wulff to die. He doesn't remember Brooklyn's hands on his arm and the way he spun around and snarled and impaled her small body on his claws, digging in deep, shredding her innards all too easily.

"Like a hot knife through butter," he remembers Dorian laughing, and then there was now, this moment where she laid at his feet, bleeding, dying.

"Why?" she asks again, one last tear finding its way down her cheek.

He wants to tell her "I don't know"and "I'm sorry" and "don't you dare shocking die on me" but his voice fails him as he falls to his knees at her side. He doesn't dare touch her, he has enough of her blood on his hands already.

Dorian leaves, pleased with the outcome even though he was not the one to kill her, and Wulff begins to tremble inside and out as the life fades from her eyes. "Brook?" he asks softly, voice cracking. "What've I done? Oh, _shock_, what have I done?_"_

He doesn't cry, even if he wants to – he doesn't really remember how to let the tears come anymore. So he does the next best thing to release the anguish inside. He closes his eyes, tosses his head back and howls until his throat is raw and his voice is lost to him for a few seconds thereafter.

* * *

He buries her in place that's as clean as it gets in a place like X-Nation, where the ground is soft and some grass grows. He marks her grave with a small boulder he carved her name into, then spends the night beside it, staring, hurting, hating this animal he's become – the one the Wild Boys so often relied upon to tear their enemies to shreds.

No more, he tells himself, promises her with a hand on her marker. He will not succumb to that animal inside of him like that ever again, he will control himself as best he can. But to do that, he needs to leave the Wild Boys.

So that's what he does. He finds them in the slums, corners Dorian and bares his teeth and tells him he's had enough, he's out. Dorian says, "nobody leaves the Wild Boys alive" as he stumbles forward, pushing himself off the wall and glaring daggers at Wulff.

"Watch me," Wulff retorts, and then he runs.

He'll spend the rest of his life running.

* * *

He stays with the Sisters of the Howling Commandments and their ragtag group of misfit mutants because Sister Nicholas has promised to teach him how to hone his powers. He could easily run from this place if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to, no matter how odd these other kids are, no matter how out of place he feels.

Because he needs to learn how to control his mutation. He needs to learn how to control the animal-like rage within.

He will have no more innocent blood on his hands.

So when the Howlers' kids sneak out and take him along for the rid, he's disgusted and angry at how easily they can hop themselves up on milk and loose whatever control they had.

They have no idea how luck they are to be able to hold all of these raw thoughts and feelings back, and he hates them all a little, and he feels his hands trembling and his vision begins to blur.

"Everybody's giving up their control," he says through gritted teeth, "and I'm always tryin' to hang on to mine!"

And as childish as it is, he growls and snarls and almost attacks because it just isn't fair.

* * *

"What the shock are we doin' out here, Wulffie?" Uproar asks, running a hand through his unkempt red hair, giving the area a look over.

The nickname is still hard to adjust to, but he's getting used to it. For her sake. "Visiting a friend," he says as he walks through the debris. He can smell her not too far away, but the years have not been kind and the once pristine piece of land is now just like the rest of this Godforsaken city.

"Your friend lives in a shithole," Uproar laughs.

"My friend doesn't _live_ anywhere," Wulff retorts.

Uproar says nothing as they come to a stop in front of a small boulder, worn and stained and buried under ruble. He watches Wulff tear away the scrap metal and rotting planks of wood until there's nothing left but the stone, and he can barely make out the name carved into its rough surface.

"Oh," the bigger mutant says, "you meant that literally."

"Yeah," Wulff says quietly, squatting and running a hand over the surface of the rock. Her name is barely visible anymore, but he can feel the indentations beneath his fingers, and it makes him smile bitterly.

"Who was this friend o' yours?" Uproar asks, standing behind his teammate.

"She was just some kid I knew back before the Howlers took me in," Wulff says.

"What happened to her?"

Wulff is silent for a minute or so, and he scrapes his claws against the stone, creating new scars as he says, "I did."

-End


End file.
